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Ukrainian Pilot Killed; Trump Reposts QAnon Content; Army Rebukes Trump Staff Over Arlington National Cemetery Incident; CNN to Interview Harris and Walz. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 29, 2024 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:25]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: A high-stakes interview, Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, sitting down today with CNN's Dana Bash. The White House hopeful opens up for the first time since President Biden left the race.

And the Army is pushing back, accusing former President Donald Trump's campaign of ignoring both federal law and tradition in his appearance at Arlington National Cemetery, saying a cemetery employee was -- quote -- "abruptly pushed aside."

The latest details on this incident.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And change of venue. The suspect in the murder of four students in Idaho wants his trial moved, Bryan Kohberger's defense team claiming there's a mob mentality in the county where he is set to be tried.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: First up this afternoon: the much-anticipated interview.

Right now, Vice President Kamala Harris is in the critical battleground state of Georgia. It's day two of her bus tour as she reaches out to voters in Republican strongholds. And, this afternoon, Harris' historically fast rise to the Democratic nomination is expected to face its next critical test when she sits down, alongside her vice presidential pick, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, for an exclusive interview with CNN's Dana Bash, which airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

This will be the first major television interview of her presidential campaign and the first chance for Americans to see Harris in this format unscripted on the key issues facing the country.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is traveling with the Harris campaign. She's in Savannah, Georgia, for us.

Priscilla, obviously a big day for Harris tonight, a rally there and then this CNN interview.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Boris. And sources have told me over time that the way the vice president prepares for anything is extensively and intensely, and that is the approach that she is taking for this interview. In previous interviews, major interviews that she's done, one former adviser telling me that she will often include prep sessions over several days and involve multiple teams to be read up on all of the policies and include the subject matter experts in that preparation.

And it is these interviews that are going to be critical, including the one tonight, because, as you mentioned, it has been a scripted and choreographed campaign over the last month. And that has led or contributed to momentum and enthusiasm and the raking in of thousands, millions of dollars.

But this is a moment for the two, Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, to answer questions candidly, to have those unscripted moments, for her to make her case why she has the credentials to take office and to also draw stark contrast with former President Donald Trump and create distinctions, or at least explain distinctions if she has any with President Joe Biden.

And, notably, of course, she's doing that all in the crucial battleground state of Georgia, a state that President Biden won by less than 12,000 votes in 2020. And where she is, is notable, right? She is in South Georgia.

These are rural counties that typically lean Republican. But the aggressive strategy by this campaign is to try to peel off those Republican votes while also winning big in metro Atlanta. Combine the two, and a senior campaign official tells me they see that pathway to victory.

And they're keenly aware that it's going to be a close race, polls showing over the last 24 hours that she has a slight edge over former President Donald Trump. But that is within the margin of error. So this -- these stops on this bus tour have given us a glimpse of what the campaign strategy is going to be here.

Now, after the bus tour, the vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz, will be heading to North Carolina, yet another state they're trying to stay bullish on, while she comes here to the arena behind me to hold a rally. We're already seeing many, many people line up. This has been consistent with her rallies, where thousands have attended.

So this is going to be another moment for her to appeal to voters, of course, just ahead of that critical interview.

SANCHEZ: Yes, and those folks behind you braving some weather, it appears.

Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much for the update from Savannah -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Today, the United States army issued a forceful rebuke of former President Trump's campaign over an incident on Monday at Arlington National Cemetery. NPR broke the story about a verbal and physical altercation after a cemetery official tried to stop Trump's team from taking photos and video in Section 60, where recent U.S. casualties are buried.

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CNN Pentagon correspondent Oren Liebermann is with us now on this story.

What's the army saying, Oren?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, this is a fairly remarkable statement coming from the Army, not only because they hadn't weighed in until this point, but also because of what they're talking about here, a rebuke of a political campaign and of former President Donald Trump.

This is not somewhere the Army often goes, and the Army also made it a point to stand up for their employee who was involved in this incident. Now, the statement itself doesn't mention Trump or the campaign, but it clearly references an August 26 ceremony and a subsequent visit to Section 60.

That's exactly what Trump was doing there earlier this week. The statement goes on to say that Arlington National Cemetery made clear to the Trump campaign federal laws governing these visits, Army regulations and DOD policies here, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds, according to this statement.

"As the employee attempted to ensure adherence to these rules, was abruptly pushed aside." That's a key moment here. Then the Army goes on to say that, once this incident started, the employee backed away from there so as not to create a commotion or any kind of larger incident at Arlington National Cemetery.

The statement goes on to say here -- and I will read this bit -- "The incident was unfortunate and it's also unfortunate that the Arlington National Cemetery employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked. Arlington National Cemetery is a national shrine to the honored dead of the armed forces and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation's fallen deserve."

So, again, a remarkable statement there, first for its rebuke of the Trump campaign, and then noteworthy that the Army is standing up for its own employee. Some of those on the Trump campaign had suggested she was a -- quote -- "despicable individual" and might have mental health issues.

So you see the Army standing up for the professionalism and the work of the employee there. It is worth noting the Army considers this matter closed because that employee decided not to press charges stemming from that incident.

KEILAR: All right, Oren Liebermann live for us from the Pentagon, thank you for that report. The Trump campaign is also facing backlash today for a flurry of

recent social media posts by the former president. He reposted a number of items calling for retribution against his political enemies, taking aim at the American justice system. Trump also shared an image of both Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, insinuating a sex act impacted their careers, and he also promoted QAnon conspiracy theories.

Jesselyn Cook joins us now. She is the author of the new book "The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family."

Jesselyn, obviously some pretty terrible posts here. I do want to talk to you about this QAnon post, because you have looked so deeply at the impact of these conspiracy theories on people. What is the effect of Trump reposting QAnon content?

JESSELYN COOK, AUTHOR, "THE QUIET DAMAGE: QANON AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY": I think a lot of people have been kind of mildly hopeful that their QAnon-believing loved ones have started to drift away from the movement.

Q, this shadowy figure at the center, has been dormant for quite some time. But days like yesterday, when Donald Trump is explicitly posting QAnon slogans, they really reverse any progress that has been made. So many families have been destroyed by this phenomenon, and believers who may have a little bit of doubt in their minds, that goes away when the former president and possible future president of the United States is posting QAnon propaganda.

And so I think we're not only going to see people starting to draw back toward the movement, but there's now more space for new people to wander into that territory.

KEILAR: And in your book, you tell the story of five families who are -- they're torn apart -- your title says it -- by these conspiracy theories.

People that you have talked to, they cut across all kinds of different lines that I think maybe people might not realize, race, class, even the political spectrum. There's even a character in your book who got into QAnon when he was 7 years old.

How are you seeing these conspiracy theories take hold this election cycle?

COOK: I think there's an assumption that conspiracy theories, especially at the QAnon level, only appeal to people who are stupid, ignorant, crazy. We hear a lot of worse terms than that.

But, really, conspiracy theories meet different needs for different people. And especially ahead of an election cycle, we're seeing a lot of very powerful people, influencers, elected leaders weaponizing conspiracy theories for their own gain, whether it's for profit or politics reasons.

And it's really having a devastating effect on so many families across the country who are having these partisan divides deepen and deepen, and having people who they love and respect and know to be kind and decent and good, drifting into these rabbit holes that make so little sense to them.

KEILAR: What did you find makes people particularly vulnerable to QAnon and conspiracy theories?

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COOK: In my reporting, I profile five families in the book, but I spent three years talking to hundreds of families, and I really wanted to understand how to ordinary people end up in a space like QAnon.

Because, again and again, we're seeing that happen. It's not just the stereotypical crazy guy who falls into QAnon. There are a lot of -- even in my book, we have a very educated lawyer who gets into QAnon. And I think what unites all of these believers is not a low I.Q., per se. It's that there's something unfulfilled in their life.

They either feel like they're lacking a sense of belonging, a sense of community, a sense of purpose. Being in QAnon, being a digital soldier, as they like to call themselves, that makes people feel good. It gives a lot of people a reason to get up and get out of bed every day and feel like they're fighting this big war that Donald Trump is waging against the so-called deep state.

And so to understand what draws people in, we need to look at what was their life like before QAnon. Were they feeling fulfilled? Did they have these unmet needs that made something like QAnon really alluring to them?

KEILAR: Jesselyn Cook, thank you so much for the great expertise. As you said, you have spoken to hundreds of people. You know a lot about what is drawing people to this. We appreciate that.

COOK: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: Boris.

SANCHEZ: If you have been paying attention to the news cycle, you know it has been a wild few weeks in this election, and new FOX News polls shed some light on how voters are reacting to it.

We're joined now by CNN's Tom Foreman.

And, Tom, the most interesting part of these polls were the Sun Belt numbers and Sun Belt states.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Take us through those.

FOREMAN: Battlegrounds that really could make a big difference in all of this.

Take a look at this. There's no clear leader here. Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and yet in three of the four, even with no clear leader, the numbers are tilted in the favor of Kamala Harris. If you look at a little more specifically like this, plus-one, plus-two, plus-two, plus-one only in North Carolina for Donald Trump, so again, in the margin for error.

This doesn't make a difference mathematically, but you don't want to be the campaign on the side, the downside of all this.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it does support the Harris team's view that North Carolina is up for grabs, when that hasn't gone to a Democrat...

FOREMAN: And that her group is moving. His numbers have set very still for a long time. She's on the move one way or the other, and the Trump team is worried.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

And, Tom, what are the issues that voters here are most focused on?

FOREMAN: That's right. Take a look at Georgia, because this is interesting.

If you look here on abortion, boy, they're giving a huge advantage to Harris over Trump on this. On health care, really sizable advantage. Now he gets an advantage here on the economy and on the Israel-Hamas war and his biggest advantage is on immigration down here.

But, again, to talk about that movement, this is how high Harris has risen on all of those compared to where Joe Biden was. So that makes a very big difference. And one more thing you have to really look at here, what was the real message of the Barack Obama election, the Donald Trump election, the Joe Biden election?

One way of looking at it is, people wanted something to change. And these voters are overwhelmingly, except, again, in North Carolina, by one point, they're saying Harris represents change. She could bring needed change.

And I want to point out this is beyond the margin of error. So how much weight do you put on that? I don't know, but it's a big deal right now.

SANCHEZ: That is interesting.

When it comes to where these candidates are spending their time, I imagine that the numbers we just saw may reflect the road map.

FOREMAN: Yes, at least for the moment. We know that Harris is down there pounding away at Georgia trying to get people out there lit up not just in Atlanta, but move it out into the countryside, trying to get some support out there and at least weaken Trump's support out there, which she believes can work.

And Trump and Vance, they're up working away in Michigan and Wisconsin and Boston sort of areas, do whatever they can to move the numbers here. All of these campaigns are going to have to be very, very, very busy over the next 60, 70 days, whatever it is here. They're going to have to be very, very busy because it's all about margins at this point and, honestly, trying to keep it a close race for both sides.

Neither one wants the other side to get some kind of breakout that gets them ahead. So we talk about a close race being a big deal. They may want a close race if the alternative is the other side getting a run.

SANCHEZ: Yes, absolutely. They will be busy in these blue wall states, in those Sun Belt states.

FOREMAN: They're going to be...

SANCHEZ: And Tom Foreman will be busy at the Magic Wall, I predict.

FOREMAN: Oh, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about this, a lot of numbers.

SANCHEZ: Appreciate you, Tom. Thank you so much.

Still plenty more news to come on NEWS CENTRAL, including a source telling CNN that a top Ukrainian pilot has been killed while flying a U.S.-made F-16 fighter jet, this as Ukrainian officials plan to show the White House a list of targets in Russia, ones that Ukraine says it needs to strike if it wants a fighting chance against Moscow.

Plus, a crucial hearing in the Idaho college murders. Bryan Kohberger's attorneys requesting a change of venue, saying the potential jury pool told them they would -- quote -- "burn the courthouse down" if he was acquitted.

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And a Taylor Swift terror plot, what we're learning about how American intelligence helped stopped what could have been a brutal attack.

Stay with us.

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SANCHEZ: In Russia's war on Ukraine. Ukraine is now grieving the death of one of their top fighter pilots who was killed flying a U.S.- made F-16 on Monday.

A source says that Oleksiy Mes, known as Moonfish, was killed -- quote -- "repelling the biggest ever aerial attack by Russia against Ukraine on Monday." Moonfish was buried today. He was trained in the United States and he appeared on CNN multiple times talking about the toll the war had on him and his fellow fighters.

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OLEKSIY MES, UKRAINIAN FIGHTER PILOT: Well, of course, it is heartbreaking to watch all of that. It is really hard to lose close friends. We are comparative with small air force and we know each other by names. And, of course, we know well all our fallen friends.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Moonfish also helped his country convince the U.S. to provide those F-16s. It took more than a year to do that.

Now these top Ukrainian officials will make another big request of the United States. They will ask to lift the restriction ON long-range weapon strikes on Russian territory. They will present a list of targets inside Russia to the defense secretary tomorrow.

Joining us now is CNN military analyst retired Major General James "Spider" Marks.

Sir, thanks so much for being with us.

I first want to get your reaction to this news that Moonfish was killed fighting while flying a U.S.made jet.

BRIG. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Boris, it's a real tragedy that Ukraine would lose one of its very best and brightest.

It's also a condition of warfare, right? He knew exactly what he was doing and he probably -- it's without doubt that he loved what he was doing. But I think it's important that we realize that there will be more engagements like this, there will be more casualties like this.

The F-16 is a combat enabler, which really can help redefine the conditions of the fight. By itself, it's great. When it's used in concert with all the other enablers, it can really be an operational -- provide an operational impact that can turn the tide of this thing if Ukraine is able to link up all these different, very successful operations that they have had.

So it clearly is a tragedy, but also bear in mind that flying an F-16 and fighting an F-16, any type of fighter aircraft, are entirely different tasks. Those fighter aircraft provide air-to-air capabilities, air-to-ground capabilities, deep strike capabilities, and they are synchronized with other forms of combat.

So it's an incredibly sophisticated, powerful enabler, and it takes a lot of training to bring them up to speed.

SANCHEZ: How do you read the fact that this happened while responding to another barrage of attacks by Russia against Ukraine, some of the most intense that we have seen this entire war? I'm wondering how long you think Ukraine can keep defending against that kind of line of attack.

MARKS: The discussion really is, how long can Russia continue to provide this type of capability against Ukraine when you know and we realize that the Russian capacity to execute these kinds of operations is dwindling?

Look, they have the law of large numbers going for them. They continue to put ill-trained, inappropriately trained young men into the fight with the certainty that they're probably going to be engaged in combat, they're going to lose their lives, and those numbers continue to tick up.

Russia is not going to go anywhere. They're going to continue to expend these resources. Ukraine's advantage is that they have really been able to demonstrate an incredible capacity to outthink, outmaneuver, outdeploy these capabilities against the Russians.

But you have to be able to tie all these together if you're really going to change the dynamics. So Ukraine's support that it gets from the West is essential. And what's also essential that we're going to talk about here is the fact that the Ukrainians have to be able to take the gloves off and be able to bring the fight into Russia against military targets, which is what they're asking to do.

Take the gloves off. Let us strike deep. Let's try to connect all these ground successes with deep strikes that deny the Russians the capability to bring forces into the battle that are ready to fight. Let's attrit them before they get there. That's the message the Ukrainians are asking the United States to support.

SANCHEZ: Yes, we will see what comes of that meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Ukrainian counterpart tomorrow.

Before we go, general, I wanted to get your reaction to the U.S. Army rebuking the Trump campaign for this story over his visit on Monday with the families of those killed at Abbey Gate and this controversy that's been stirred over how his campaign approached an official on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.

MARKS: Yes, the thing about Arlington is, it is hallowed ground.

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It's the -- for lack of a better description, I describe Arlington as a chapel, as a place of holiness and honor. And you don't want to use that for any personal public gain. That's the issue.

And so the rules are very clear. And Arlington really describes them, makes them crystal clear in advance of any visit to Arlington. It is understood that this is an opportunity for personal grieving, for personal embrace, for an opportunity to gather together and recognize these incredible sacrifices that these young men and women have made.

So to go forward and to use that as a -- I'm assuming it was a campaign effort. That's what it's been described as. That has a definition to it. I can't get into that. But Arlington owns that place. America owns it and Arlington ensures that America can honor those that are there.

So there are rules that we follow. I go to Arlington. I have buried too many of my fellow soldiers and friends. I am silent. I follow the orders. I know exactly what the rules are and I am in step with those rules. Everybody needs to do that, irrespective of who you are.

SANCHEZ: Major General James "Spider" Marks, we appreciate the perspective, sir. Thanks for being with us.

MARKS: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Still ahead: Attorneys for the suspect in the University of Idaho murders want his trial moved after they say a survey showed people in that town -- quote -- "would probably find him and kill him" if he was acquitted.

We have the latest developments in a crucial hearing when we come back.

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